/fixed

In the short run (and with increasing difficulty), Hashes per USD on the price tag is THE only thing to look at.

In the longer run (and with constant or falling difficulty), Hashes per Watt used is the dominant measurement.

If you could get a device that costs only 50 USD, uses 3000 Watt per hour and does 1000 MH/s, it would be a better investment currently than FPGAs that cost 500 USD, use 20 Watts and do a few hundred MHashes/sec.

I really should plot out some numbers, as noone did it yet publicly... but that could get quite depressing for 6990 owners/buyers!

Except that, to me, you're the little kid. You're probably younger than me.

This is a bogus argument.

Consider: You give me a dollar. I roll a six-sided die. If it comes up '1', I give you $1,000. You only get to play once.

Is this a good deal? By your reasoning, it's not. Most people who take the deal will come out behind $1.

You like to blame the news reporter, just because the world is a dangerous place.

Go ahead and put your head back in the sand -- I won't be competing for that particular hole in the ground. While you're at it, feel free to buy some overpriced video cards from eBay or the Selling forum here. "Bitcoin is going TO DA MOON! If anyone says anything negative, I plug my ears and say 'Lalalalalalalalala...'"

I'm the voice of reason. No wonder so many people here don't like me  

The alternative is heating and noising up your house for a wimpy 0.72 BTC a day on the same assumptions. That's really not worth the hassle.

On the other hand, I have switched 1 week ago from pooled to solo mining, after earning 3 BTC in total, the hard way. Today I have 53 BTC in my account, that's really worth the effort. The big profits make you smile. IMHO, a trickle profit of <1 BTC really isn't much more satisfying than 0 payback and the chance for big cash. That might be interesting for kids converting their parents' electricity to cash, but not for me.

The 6870 is not equivalent to the 5870 though, it's the 5830s replacement. If you look at the specs of those 2 GPUs side by side, you'll see that the only difference is the increased clocks and twice as many Z/Stencil ROP Units and Color ROP Units. The 6950 replaces the 5850, the 6970 replaces the 5870 and the 6990 replaces the 5970. The majority of people make this mistake at first. The 6000 series don't use the same numbering scheme. They don't even use a consistent numbering scheme.



The mining hardware comparison chart. The Caymans (6950 and above) use a different architecture though so the same rule doesn't apply to them.


Like I said, they can either reduce power consumption, increase performance or both. The variable is the GPU size.


The 6800s dont use VLIW4 they use VLIW5 the same as the 5000 series, it's only the 6900s that are using VLIW4, and they don't have less SPs. The 6870 has the same number of SPs as the 5830, which is 1120. A 28nm VLIW4 GPU would destroy the equivalent 40nm VLIW5 GPU in terms of hash rate.

I don't know where you guys are getting this info from that the 5000 series give better hash rates as they don't. The equivalent 6000 series cards gives a couple of more Mh/s.

As for the 7000s, if it's just a die shrink, we'll see a major increase in hash rates if the GPU stays the same size, as there would be over a billion more transistors. A 28nm 6870 with a GPU size of a 40nm 6870 would offer similar performance to a 6970. On the other hand, the size of the GPU could be reduced, keeping the same number of transistors as before. This would provide a decrease in power consumption.

With smaller transistors, you can pack in more SPs per mm^2, and lots of SPs is what makes these cards good for mining. If the 7000 series is simply a die shrink, then we'll see faster hash rates, decreased power consumption, or both. Just look at the difference between the 55nm 4000 series and the 40nm 5000/6000 series.

That's a bit rhetorical. Just as gmaxwell wrote: there is no sure return "NOW" in a pool vs. an uncertain return in a distant future for solo mining. There is just a trade-off between probability and payout. There indeed is a risk to never see a block before difficulty hits the space age. But there is also a chance to find multiple blocks during the current difficulty and get a large payout. A pool doesn't pay you better in the latter case, solo mining does.

Having instant benefits now instead of later might be a huge benefit during accelerated growth of a whole economy. But Bitcoin is a currency and does not earn you interest. Getting 50 BTC now or later is of no difference if it is BTC's value itself that is growing. If mining would return another currency, say Batcoin, and your goal was to participate in Bitcoin's growth, instant payout of Batcoins would be important, so that you can convert them to Bitcoins before the price (Batcoin/Bitcoin) increases. But the payout is denoted in Bitcoin already, you participate in the growth of its value, even if you aren't cashed out immediately, because the return is always a nominal 50 BTC.

It would be different if the price of Bitcoin was falling and you always sell your coins immediately to earn interest in another currency. Then an instant payout would be a benefit.

Explain to me the mechanism behind difficulty having an effect on price. Because I cannot come up with any explanation for it since the same amount of BTC are produced regardless of difficulty. The supply is completely independent of the expense of mining. Just because it's more expensive to mine now doesn't mean that you can get more $ for BTC...


You don't seem to understand where prices come from in the aggregate market.

I have to first tackle the last part of your post, or what follows won't make sense. BTC supply is not affected by anything - it is fixed at ~6.7 million BTC in the short term and the rate of increase is fixed at ~2000 blocks per 2 weeks (given steady network hash power). The only thing that changes is the QUANTITY supplied, which is a function of price. The supply curve itself does not move (well, moves to the right at 2000 blocks per 2 weeks).

The demand for BTC is derived from the demand of doing transactions with it and from speculating (it's not really investing at this point, too risky). There most certainly is a demand for BTC. Any good or service (currency included) has a demand and a supply. Even if people only value the transaction, BTC is needed for the transaction, and thus there is a derivative demand for BTC.

Like I said before, price is determined by the intersection of supply and demand. The equilibrium price is the one that clears the market - everyone who wants to buy for more than that $ amount has been satisfied, and everyone who is willing to sell for less is also satisfied. For the price to reach $200/BTC, there has to be a LOT of demand because he supply is fixed.

To give an analogy, let's say there is an island that has 100 rocks, which the islanders use as currency. If there are 100 islanders, each one can have a rock on average. If there are 200 islanders, each one can only have 1/2 of a rock. The real value of a rock has increased DUE TO increased demand. This is the exact mechanism behind BTC dollar price in the long run (short run there's all kinds of speculation etc).

In your example, the real demand for BTC cannot be the same on an aggregate level. There can be only one price that clears the market (law of one price) for any given levels of supply and demand.  Since the supply is fixed, demand must be different in your example.

Here's my visual for this, courtesy of MS paint:



Notice that the quantity of BTC traded for dollars depends on the demand for BTC. A move from low demand (D1) to high demand (D2) increases both the quantity sold of BTC and the dollar price of BTC. Difficulty or whatever else variable you want to throw in does not have any bearing on the dollar value of a bitcoin. Everything depends on how much people want to have bitcoins vs. how much people want to have dollars.

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Difficulty has no effect on price. A high price will induce people to come into the market, but a high difficulty will have no effect on price.

The only thing that drives price is demand, since supply is essentially fixed at 6.something million coins right now.

How do you track a prepaid visa? Point of sale (kiosk, online, etc.. Unless dealt in person by proxy buyer like a homeless man, etc. in which case untraceable)

How do you track someone who spends bitcoins he has just freshly mined?

You don't. Only BTC with a history can be traced somewhere. BTC that simply originate from a block and reside in the miner's wallet but have never been moved, have no "identity" nor can it's owner be identified.

The owner could even move his wallet in encrypted USB sticks, sell and buy them, and nobody would ever know until they are spent or sent to an exchange, etc.